Development of a 3-D-printed mouse phantom to replace current mouse animal model

Evaluating the radiation dose of target organs of a laboratory mouse requires a glass dosimeter to be surgically inserted at the irradiated location. However, precisely inserting the glass dosimeter at the same location in different mice is rarely achieved, reducing the reliability of the measured radiation dose. To address this limitation, 3-D mouse phantom was developed using computed tomography scanning and 3-D printing technology. The radiation dose of target organs was assessed using four mouse models: laboratory mouse, 3-D mouse phantom, Monte Carlo N-Particle (MCNP) 3-D phantom, and MCNP simulation. In all the experiments, the brain, heart, lungs, and abdomen were irradiated with 100 mGy of measured air kerma at a 6 mGyh–1 air kerma rate. A small volume glass dosimeter was inserted into the mouse models to assess the radiation dose, and the reliability of the glass dosimeter reading system was evaluated using the dose-response curves. The dose values of the laboratory mouse and 3-D-printed mouse phantom were found to differ by up to 3.3 %. This study provides a method to accurately measure the radiation dose to target organs, enhancing the reliability of pre-experiments.